Thomas Rymer (1638-1713) was the author of some dramas and some essays in criticism, which shewed the worst side of the literary faculty of his age. The most lamentable of these attempts was his View of the Tragedies of the Last Age. As historiographer he was employed on more laborious but, perhaps, more useful work, in the compilation of the Fœdera, a statement of the international engagements of England. Rymer contributed more than one pamphlet, adverse to the Christ Church wits, to the controversy on the subject of ancient and modern learning. This sufficiently accounts for Swift's dislike.